Sony’s new RGB LED display technology could be a TV game changer
While LG, Panasonic and Philips have been looking to revolutionise the OLED arena, Sony has been focusing on RGB LED TV innovation
Japanese tech powerhouse Sony has lifted the lid on a new display system it believes will blaze a bright and colourful trail in TV manufacturing.
TVs such as the LG G5, Panasonic Z95B and Philips OLED+910 are using new Primary RGB Tandem OLED panels this year, but Sony has unveiled a new TV panel innovation using Mini LEDs.
Its new panel employs a high-density LED backlight alongside “independent drive” RGB LED technology, allowing each primary colour (red, green and blue) to emit light independently.
The result, Sony says, is high colour purity and vibrant wide colour gamut images, with the brand claiming its new system covers more than 99% of the DCI-P3 colour gamut and 90% of BT.2020. Those are some impressive numbers; the only TVs we’ve seen come close to that are flagship quantum dot OLEDs such as the Sony A95L and Samsung S95D.
Peak brightness levels are set to exceed what those two TVs are capable of, however. According to the brand, its new display can pump out peaks of over 4,000cd/m². We’ve reviewed one telly that beats that – the Hisense UXN – but otherwise, most quantum dot Mini LED models peak somewhere between 2,000cd/m² and 3,500cd/m².
Sony’s new panel is equipped with proprietary backlight control technology to optimise performance for large screens. It’s able to allocate optimal power to each RGB channel on a scene-by-scene basis and, rather than simply concentrating light on the brightest on-screen elements, adjusts luminance in a way that minimises disruption to colour gradation. As a result, scenes comprising single tones should retain detail while still being incredibly bright.
Individual control of each RGB LED allows the system, which uses a MediaTek processor twice as powerful as conventional local dimming setups, to accurately render bright highlights and avoid black crush. This should make it an appealing display for cinephiles and Sony is placing a strong focus on retaining artistic intent. It says its backlight tech “enables faithful reproduction of delicate hues and subtle gradations of light across every corner of the display”. Music to film lovers’ ears.
Sony also says its new system has the advantage over OLED panels when it comes to reproducing colours with moderate brightness and saturation. It’s also claimed to deliver strong performance when watched from wide viewing angles thanks to 96-bit signal processing that minimises colour shift and brightness variation.
We don’t yet know the commercial form Sony’s new panel system will take, but it’s been confirmed that it will enter mass production this year. So we can expect to see it find its way into consumer televisions reasonably soon.
Sony is set to announce its full 2025 TV lineup early next month and we’ll be breaking down the full range as soon as we have details about it. It’s likely to roll a couple of models from last year over, but we’re excited to see what additions it’s making as the ever-engrossing battle for television supremacy heats up.
